Tag Archives: candlepin bowling

It is so rare that friends of mine celebrate their birth with an activity other than straight up drinking. In fact, only one friend comes to mind and this is the second year we have celebrated another year of his life by bowling.

But not just any regular ol’ bowling and not just at any regular bowling alley. Frank is a candlepin bowling aficionado and, until recently, had never set foot inside Ball Square Bowling.

You see, Ball Square Bowling is not open to the public. I’ve lived about four blocks from it for almost two years and have only seen people bowling inside twice. Thanks to Frank being at the right place at the right time, he was able to talk to the manager and rent it out for his birthday. And thus my quest to bowl there was finally going to come to fruition.

We played a few strings before the alcohol took control and random balls started flying down all eight lanes. At this point in the evening I got a strike while emulating some ridiculous move from Zumba class. I will now always throw like I am chopping wood.

The manager that night was kind enough to take us back behind the scenes and show us how the pins were automatically set up and the balls returned. It was pretty cool – as you can tell from my face.

(Also, that is Frank on my shirt. It’s pretty much the best shirt ever. I have three.)

The pins are fed up through this machine and then slide down these little chutes to form their ten pin formation. It’s totally old school and you can tell it’s a “they don’t make ‘em like they used to!” type of machine. The machine was so loud you could barely hear Frank scream “THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!”

Behind the pins was a turntable spinning at a 1000000 MPH to help return the balls down the lane. That remained a bit of a mystery. I was far too fascinated by the pins.

We were standing just above the pins on this rickety plywood that, thank goodness, did not bust with ten of us standing on top of it. They also don’t make wood like they used to.